1. hobbies and interests
2. guitar

USER MANUAL
Produced by Vir2 Instruments
Vir2 Instruments / is an
international team of sound
designers, musicians, and
programmers, who specialize in
creating the world’s most
advanced virtual instrument
libraries. Vir2 is producing the
instruments that shape the
sound of modern music.
29033 Avenue Sherman, Suite 201
Valencia, CA 91355
Phone: 661.295.0761
Web: www.vir2.com
USER MANUAL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
00
ELECTRI6ITY/
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 01
01
INTRODUCTION TO THE LIBRARY
CHAPTER 02: REQUIREMENTS AND INSTALLATION
03
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
03
INSTALLING
04
UPDATING
04
AUTHORIZING
CHAPTER 03: USING KONTAKT
05HOW TO ACCESS THE ELECTRI6ITY
LIBRARY FROM KONTAKT
05
USING KONTAKT IN STANDALONE MODE
07USING KONTAKT AS A VST PLUG-IN IN CUBASE AND NUENDO
08USING KONTAKT AS A VST OR AUDIOUNIT PLUG-IN IN ABLETON
LIVE
09USING KONTAKT AS AN AUDIOUNIT PLUG-IN IN LOGIC PRO,
LOGIC STUDIO, LOGIC EXPRESS, ETC.
10
USING KONTAKT IN GARAGEBAND
11 USING KONTAKT AS AN AUDIOUNIT PLUG-IN IN DIGITAL
PERFORMER
11 USING KONTAKT AS AN RTAS PLUG-IN IN PRO TOOLS
ELECTRI6ITY
Electri6ity
12 USING KONTAKT AS A PLUG-IN IN ANOTHER HOST
CHAPTER 04: GETTING STARTED
13
Step 1 | User Interface Overview
15
Step 2 | Articulations
19
Step 3 | Play Modes
20
Step 4 | Playing Techniques
21
Step 5 | Strumming and Picking
22
Step 6 | Release Noise
22
Step 6 | Release Noise
CHAPTER 05: DETAILS
25
Performance Page
30
Settings Page
CHAPTER 06: FAQS
44
FAQS
CHAPTER 07: CC LIST | KEYSWITCH LIST
48
CC List | Performance Page
48
CC List | SETTINGS Page
51
Keyswitch List | Default
51
Keyswitch List | ALTERNATIVE
CHAPTER 08: TECH SUPPORT, ETC.
53 TECH SUPPORT
53 THE FULL VERSION OF KONTAKT 4
53 LICENSE AGREEMENT
54 CREDITS
00
CHAPTER 01 / INTRODUCTION TO THE LIBRARY
01
CHAPTER 01
ELECTRI6ITY/
INTRODUCTION
TO THE
LIBRARY
Thank you for purchasing Electri6ity, an epic electric
guitar virtual instrument containing the most advanced,
detailed, and versatile collection of electric guitars ever
made in a virtual instrument.
Electri6ity contains eight of the most famous and
distinguished guitar tones from the history of the
instrument: the Strat, Tele, P90, Les Paul, Rickenbacker,
Electri6ity
Danelectro Lipstick, ES335, and L4. More than 24,000
24-bit samples were taken of each guitar.
Three pickup options (front, rear, and mixed) are available on every
guitar. An impressive amount of samples allow you to play every
articulation on every fret of every string for an absolutely authentic
guitar sound. Downstrokes, upstrokes, seamless velocity layers,
ghost notes, mutes, harmonics, hammer-ons, pulloffs, slides,
releases, and FX...the sky is the limit with Electri6ity.
Electri6ity also utilizes the most advanced scripting to date,
including the revolutionary Articulation Morphing Technology
(A.M.T.) and Velocity Morphing Technology (V.M.T.) allowing for the
seamless morphing from dead mute to sustain or from soft to loud.
Advanced string and fretboard positioning is performed by artificial
intelligence which adapts to your playing. Play fluid lines in real time
using the legato engine, play chords using the chord detection
engine which understands almost 2000 different chords, easily
double-track, do unison bends, strum, pick, trill, tremolo pick, slide...
all of this is built into the Electri6ity engine and full editing
control is given over each of these parameters.
All samples in Electri6ity are recorded clean - a direct input from
the guitar. Use Electri6ity’s built-in multieffects (phaser, flanger,
chorus, reverb, and delay), Screamer module, and amp simulation
(British, Classic, Clean, Jazz, Metal, Modern, and Rock) to make the
sound come alive, or use your own guitar amps or simulators to
multiply the possibilities.
02
CHAPTER 02 / REQUIREMENTS AND INSTALLATION
03
CHAPTER 02
ELECTRI6ITY/
REQUIREMENTS
AND
INSTALLATION
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
For Mac users, ELECTRI6ITY requires OS 10.5.x or greater, an Intel Core Duo
1.66GHz or higher, a DVD drive, and 4GB of RAM.
For Windows users, ELECTRI6ITY requires Windows XP (SP2, 32-bit),
Windows Vista (32/64 bit), or Windows 7 (32/64 bit), a Pentium or Athlon
1.4GHz or faster, a DVD drive, and 4GB of RAM.
The library requires approximately 27GB of disk space.
Vir2 Instruments strongly recommends more than 4GB of RAM and an 88key controller in order to use ELECTRI6ITY to its fullest potential.
INSTALLING
The installation of ELECTRI6ITY is two separate steps: the installation of the
Kontakt engine, and the installation of the ELECTRI6ITY library.
Insert the installation disc into your computer, and you will see the installers
for both components. It doesn’t matter which is installed first. Run each of
the installers and they will guide you through the installation process.
Electri6ity
The Kontakt installer will install the Kontakt engine, its standalone
application, all of its plug-in versions, and the Service Center authorizer
program. We recommend the Easy Install and that the install locations for
each component are left at their default settings.
The ELECTRI6ITY library is approximately 27GB in size, and its installer will
prompt you for the location you wish to install it. It can be installed on any
available hard drive. For speed reasons, we recommend it be installed on
internal or eSATA drives. Firewire can also be acceptable. External USB
drives may give somewhat less optimized performance. We also recommend
7200 or 10,000rpm drives regardless of the interface used.
04
UPDATING
After installation, please make sure that you are fully updated to the most
recent versions of the three components that make up the ELECTRI6ITY
package: the library (which contains all the patch information and
programming), the engine (which is powered by Kontakt), and the
authorizer (Service Center). It is possible that any of these components
may have a more recent version than shipped in your physical package, so
you should check for updates to each of these three. You can do this by
visiting the vir2.com web site and checking the Support area.
AUTHORIZING
After you’ve completed installation, ELECTRI6ITY will be working in demo
mode, meaning it will only work for 15 minutes at a time. To fully authorize
it, launch Service Center (found in the Applications folder on a Mac, or the
Program Files folder on Windows) and follow its instructions. You will be
prompted to enter your e-mail address and password that make up your
Native Instruments account, or will be given an option to create an account
if you don’t already have one. Once inside the Service Center, it will give
you a list of all the Native Instruments and NI-powered products on your
hard drive and give you the option to activate them. You are allowed to
install and use ELECTRI6ITY on up to two computers simultaneously.
Service Center will guide you through the process for either online (instant)
activation, or offline activation if the computer you installed ELECTRI6ITY
on does not have direct access to the internet.
CHAPTER 03 / USING KONTAKT
05
CHAPTER 03
ELECTRI6ITY/
USING
KONTAKT
HOW TO ACCESS THE ELECTRI6ITY LIBRARY FROM KONTAKT
ELECTRI6ITY ships as a Kontakt-powered library, and ELECTRI6ITY is
opened from within Kontakt, which can be run either as a standalone
application, or as a plug-in hosted by any major sequencer on either
Macintosh or Windows platforms. All these versions are installed by the Easy
Install option of the installer.
Users who don’t own a sequencer, or would like to simply boot up and be
able to play ELECTRI6ITY, can go to their Applications folder (Mac) or
Program Files folder (Windows) to launch Native Instruments > Kontakt.
Users who wish to use ELECTRI6ITY for sequencing or recording, or wish to
play it multitimbrally, should use it in plug-in mode within a host sequencer.
Kontakt supports the VST, AudioUnit, and RTAS plug-in formats. Any host
sequencer that supports these plug-in formats properly will be able to use
Kontakt. Instructions vary slightly from sequencer to sequencer, but the
general procedure is to instantiate Kontakt as a virtual instrument plug-in,
then load a ELECTRI6ITY instrument in Kontakt, then route a MIDI track to
Kontakt so it can be triggered and recorded.
The following instructions will help standalone and plug-in users get up and
running quickly with a basic track of ELECTRI6ITY.
USING KONTAKT IN STANDALONE MODE
Electri6ity
The standalone Kontakt application can be found in the Applications >
Kontakt 4 folder for Mac users, or Program Files > Native Instruments >
Kontakt 4 for Windows users.
After launching the Kontakt application for the first time, you will be
presented with a dialog box to set up your audio and MIDI settings. Settings
will vary for each user according to the specific setup, but the important
thing is to route the audio to a valid audio device, and to set the buffer
reasonably low for good latency performance. We recommend 256 samples
or less. The lower the latency slider, the less latency (the split second
between the physical playing of the note and the sound coming out of
Kontakt) will be, but the harder the computer will have to work. Typical
useful values range between 128 and 256, however very fast computers may
be able to handle lower values, while very slow computers may need higher
values. [01]
The MIDI page of the Options dialog box must be configured in order to let
Kontakt know which MIDI device(s) to respond to. Kontakt will respond to
up to four MIDI input ports (A, B, C, and D), so we recommend you switch
one MIDI source on to Port A, as shown in the graphic below. [02]
More detailed information on the setup options can be found in the
accompanying Kontakt manual.
Once you have completed Kontakt setup, jump ahead to the Getting Started
with ELECTRI6ITY section below.
01
02
06
07
USING KONTAKT AS A VST PLUG-IN IN CUBASE AND NUENDO
Users of Steinberg’s Cubase or Nuendo sequencers can use Kontakt as a
VST plug-in. These instructions have been prepared in Cubase 5, although
Kontakt may also work in earlier versions if the computer meets the system
requirements.
Once the project is open, go to the Devices menu and choose VST
Instruments: [01]
01
When the VST Instruments window appears, click in the first available slot in
which “no instrument” is listed. [02]
02
A popup menu will appear; choose Kontakt 4.
An alert box will appear asking if you want to create a MIDI track assigned to
the Kontakt 4 plug-in. Click Create. [03]
Electri6ity
03
The Kontakt window will appear, and a MIDI track will be created,
transmitting to Kontakt’s MIDI channel A-1. When it is record-enabled, it will
send any incoming MIDI played on your controller into Kontakt.
At this point, you can skip down in the instructions to the Getting Started
With ELECTRI6ITY section below.
USING KONTAKT AS A VST OR AUDIOUNIT PLUG-IN IN ABLETON LIVE
Users of Ableton Live can use Kontakt as a VST or AudioUnit plug-in,
depending on the version. The functionality is the same. These instructions
have been prepared in Live 7, although Kontakt may also work in earlier or
later versions if the computer meets the system requirements.
Once the project is open, go to the left side and click on the third icon down
to show the Plug-in Devices list, then scroll to the Native Instruments folder
and locate Kontakt 4: [04]
04
Drag Kontakt 4 into the central area where the text “Drop Files and Devices
Here” is shown.
The Kontakt interface will appear, and it will already be actively transmitting
to Kontakt’s MIDI channel A-1. When it is record-enabled, it will send any
incoming MIDI played on your controller into Kontakt.
At this point, you can skip down in the instructions to the Getting Started
With ELECTRI6ITY section below.
08
09
USING KONTAKT AS AN AUDIOUNIT PLUG-IN IN LOGIC PRO, LOGIC
STUDIO, LOGIC EXPRESS, ETC.
Users of Apple’s Logic can use Kontakt as an AudioUnit plug-in. These
instructions have been prepared in Logic Pro 8, although Kontakt may also
work in earlier versions if the computer meets the system requirements.
Once inside your Logic project, go to the Track mini-menu (in the central
area of your screen) and choose Track > New... [01]
01
The New Tracks dialog box will appear. Make sure Software Instrument is
selected, then click Create. [02]
02
03
The new instrument track will be created. On the left side of the screen you
will see the channel strip for that channel, including a fader, pan knob, and
various insert slots. Locate the blank slot just below the letters “I/O” and
above the output pair: [03]
Click there, and a list of available instrument plug-ins will appear. Choose AU
Instruments > Native Instruments > Kontakt 3 > Stereo. [04]
Electri6ity
04
The Kontakt window will appear, and a MIDI track will be created,
transmitting to Kontakt’s MIDI channel A-1. When it is record-enabled, it will
send any incoming MIDI played on your controller into Kontakt.
At this point, you can skip down in the instructions to the Getting Started
With ELECTRI6ITY section below.
USING KONTAKT IN GARAGEBAND
Users of Apple’s GarageBand can use Kontakt as an AudioUnit plug-in. These
instructions have been prepared in GarageBand 5 (which shipped with iLife ‘09),
although Kontakt may also work in earlier versions if the computer meets the system
requirements.
Once inside your GarageBand project, go to the Track menu and choose New Track.
[05]
05
06
A window with three choices will appear. Choose Software Instrument, then click
Choose. [06] On the right side of the interface, the Browse tab will be showing. Switch
to the Edit tab. [07] The Sound Generator will default to Piano. Click on Piano, and a
popup menu will appear. Choose Audio Unit Modules > Kontakt 3. [08]
07
on
08
the
09
on
Note: GarageBand may default to inserting
effects, such as a compressor and a visual EQ
this track. This will color the sound. If you don’t
want these effects used, you can remove
them.
Once Kontakt 3 is selected, the icon will
change to the AudioUnit icon (the ball with
sound waves radiating outward). Double-click
the icon to bring up the Kontakt window. [09]
The Kontakt window will appear, and a MIDI
track will be created, transmitting to Kontakt’s
MIDI channel A-1. When it is record-enabled, it
will send any incoming MIDI played on your controller into Kontakt.
At this point, you can skip down in the instructions to the Getting Started With
ELECTRI6ITY section below.
10
11
USING KONTAKT AS AN AUDIOUNIT PLUG-IN IN DIGITAL PERFORMER
Users of MOTU’s Digital Performer can use Kontakt as an AudioUnit plug-in.
These instructions have been prepared in Digital Performer 6, although
Kontakt may also work in earlier versions if the computer meets the system
requirements.
Once the project is open, go to the Project menu and choose Add Track >
Add Instruments... [01]
01
In the resulting dialog box, click on the Unassigned pulldown menu, and
choose Native Instruments > Kontakt 3. You can also change the number of
MIDI tracks to be added, if you know you will want to use more than one.
[02]
02
The Kontakt window will appear, and a MIDI track will be created,
transmitting to Kontakt’s MIDI channel A-1. When it is record-enabled, it will
send any incoming MIDI played on your controller into Kontakt.
At this point, you can skip down in the instructions to the Getting Started
With ELECTRI6ITY section below.
Electri6ity
USING KONTAKT AS AN RTAS PLUG-IN IN PRO TOOLS
Users of Digidesign’s Pro Tools (M-Powered, LE, or TDM) can use Kontakt as
an RTAS plug-in. These instructions have been prepared in Pro Tools 8,
although Kontakt may also work in earlier versions if the computer meets
the system requirements.
12
Once the project is open, go to the Track menu and choose New... [03]
03
In the dialog box that appears, choose the appropriate options, such as the
following: create 1 new stereo Instrument Track in samples. Then click Create.
[04] 04
Go to the Mix window and look at the channel strip for the instrument. At the
very top is an area for Inserts A-E. [05]
Click on the first of the five slots, and navigate through the popup menu to
choose multichannel plug-in > Instrument > Kontakt 3. [06]
06
05
The Kontakt window will appear. At this point, you can skip down in the
instructions to the Getting Started With ELECTRI6ITY section below.
USING KONTAKT AS A PLUG-IN IN ANOTHER HOST
There are too many host programs to cover here in detail, but any modern
sequencer that properly supports the VST, AudioUnit, or RTAS standards
should be able to use Kontakt properly, and load ELECTRI6ITY within it.
Consult the manual for your specific host to find out how to instantiate the
Kontakt virtual instrument.
CHAPTER 04 / getting started
13
CHAPTER 04
ELECTRI6ITY/
GETTING
STARTED
ELECTRI6ITY | Getting Started | Step 1 | User Interface Overview
Performance Page:
After loading an ELECTRI6ITY instrument, you’ll find yourself on the
Performance Page, which displays detailed information about which
articulation is active, which keyswitch is pressed, which chord is detected,
and an overview of all the main parameters which control the scripting
engine behind ELECTRI6ITY:
On the bottom of the page you’ll find three tabs (four in all AMPED
instruments). Simply click on them to switch from one tab to another one.
Here is an short overview:
Electri6ity
Settings Page:
You’ll be able to tweak ELECTRI6ITY in almost infinite ways by using the
controls on this page. For more information about this page please read the
>ELECTRI6ITY | Settings Page chapter of this manual.
Effects Page (AMPED Instruments only):
On this page you can add effects to your guitar sound (Phaser, Chorus,
Flanger, Delay and Reverb), you can add distortion with a Screamer FX
pedal, and you can pass the guitar through a virtual guitar amp.
This page does not appear in any DI instrument, because the DI instruments
have been created for users who use their own (real or virtual) guitar amps
and effects.
Fretboard Page:
The virtual fretboard shows you how ELECTRI6ITY is choosing strings and
frets according to your playing. It also displays the stroke direction (up or
downstroke) and other playing techniques (for example, slides). You can
watch the virtual fretboard to see how ELECTRI6ITY is transforming your
playing to the virtual guitar strings and frets.
14
15
ELECTRI6ITY | Getting Started | Step 2 | Articulations
Hint: ELECTRI6ITY is a very powerful instrument, but it’s easy to
get lost. If you get lost at any point and you want to reset ELECTRI6ITY
to its original state, simply press the [!] button on the top of the
Kontakt interface.
All of the core ELECTRI6ITY instruments include all available articulations
and playing techniques. Unlike many older sample libraries in which you have
to choose and load different patches for different articulations before you’ll
be able start playing. ELECTRI6ITY uses an different approach: you only
have to load one of the guitars and you are ready to go. If you need a certain
articulation, you’ll be able to simply activate it via keyswitch. That way you’ll
be much more flexible and your focus will be on creativity rather than on
patch selection before you even have started to write a song.
Hint: ELECTRI6ITY uses as special keyswitch system, which allows us to
fit more keyswitches in the limited range of keys available on an 88-key
keyboard. You’ll find more information here: >ELECTRI6ITY FAQ | First
Steps: [v] Velocity Sensitive Keyswitch and [f] Forced Keyswitch. But
don’t worry, you don’t have to understand those terms at moment. The
table below exactly tells you how to play a certain keyswitch. For
example: ‘B0 – keyswitch played hard’. This means you have to play B0
with a velocity equal or higher than 90. If you read ‘played soft’ it
means you have to play the keyswitch with a velocity lower than 90.
Keyswitch without direction on how to play them can be played at any
velocity and behave like standard keyswitches.
Electri6ity
Another benefit of ELECTRI6ITY is that it has advanced artificial intelligence
working behind the scenes. Let’s take the legato mode for example. While
it’s might be possible to manually create legato lines by constantly switching
between sustain notes, hammer on and pull off articulations, a lot of work
would be involved to get good and realistic results that way. In ELECTRI6ITY
you simply have to switch to the legato mode and you’ll get fluid legato lines
automatically by simply playing. The engine chooses the right articulations
for you.
We want to give you an overview over all available articulations in
ELECTRI6ITY on the following pages. The table shows the articulation and
how is it selected. We are also going to describe each articulation, when it‘s
used, and if there is anything special to note about it.
16
Hint: All Articulations with an [AMT] tag have a special morph control
which is available as long as the articulation is active. For more
information please read >Performance Page | Changing Play Mode later,
where you’ll find more info about the different setup possibilities and
how you can control the morphing.
Articulation
Sustain
Keyswitch
B0 - keyswitch played hard
The Sustain articulation is the articulation you most likely will use for
typical strumming riffs or solo playing.
Half-Muted
B0 - keyswitch played soft
Half-muted notes are basically shorter sustain notes due to a light muting
with the palm of the right hand. They are suitable for very fast solo playing
or arpeggios, for example.
Muted<->Sustain [AMT]
C0 - keyswitch played hard
The Muted<->Sustain articulation allows you to dynamically morph from
very short muted notes to open sustain notes depending on how hard you
play. It’s suitable for all kinds of guitar riffs in which you often change
between muted and sustain notes. This articulation is active by default
when you first load up an ELECTRI6ITY instrument.
Muted<->Half-Muted [AMT]
C0 - keyswitch played soft
The Muted<-> Half-Muted articulation allows you to morph from very short
muted notes to half-muted notes. It’s suitable for fast heavy metal riffs, for
example.
Sustain<->Harmonics Oct. [AMT]
D0 - keyswitch played hard
The Sustain<->Harmonics Oct. articulation allows you to morph from
sustain notes to octave pinch harmonics. On guitar it’s possible to create
artificial harmonics with a technique called ‘Pinch Harmonics’. Very shortly
after playing the note the right thumb touches the string, which mutes the
fundamental frequency of the played note, while the harmonics keep
sounding. This technique allows to play notes higher than the highest
sustain note on the fretboard. In ELECTRI6ITY you not only have sustain
notes and harmonics, you can seamlessly morph between them!
Sustain<->Harmonics Fifth [AMT]
D0 - keyswitch played soft
The Sustain<->Harmonics Fifth articulation allows you to morph from
sustain notes to fifth pinch harmonics. On guitar it’s possible to create
artificial harmonics with a technique called ‘Pinch Harmonics’. Very shortly
after playing the note the right thumb touches the string, which mutes the
fundamental frequency of the played note, while the harmonics keep
sounding. This technique allows to play notes higher than the highest
sustain note on the fretboard. In ELECTRI6ITY you not only have sustain
notes and harmonics, you can seamlessly morph between them!
17
Articulation
Muted Hammer On<->Hammer On
[AMT]
Keyswitch
E0 - keyswitch played hard
The Muted Hammer On<->Hammer On articulation allows you to play
hammer ons, a playing technique where you use your left or right hand to
hammer on the fretboard to make the note sound. This technique is used if
notes are played very fast, if notes are played legato, or for tapping licks
(for example, Van Halen uses a lot of tapping in his playing). You can
switch between muted hammer ons and open hammer ons with this
articulation.
Muted Pull Off<->Pull Off [AMT]
E0 - keyswitch played soft
The Muted Pull Off<->Pull Off articulations allows you to play pull offs, a
playing technique where you pull your pressed finger of your left or right
hand from the fretboard to make a note sounding. This technique is used if
notes are played very fast, for legato playing, and for tapping licks . You
can switch between muted pull offs and open pull offs with this
articulation.
FX
F0 - keyswitch active as long as is
pressed
ELECTRI6ITY offers a variety of one-shot FX samples (plectrum scratches,
screams, whammy effects, etc.). They are nice to spice up riffs and for
various kinds of intros or endings. The FX samples have been spread across
the entire playable range of the guitar, with one FX sample to each
chromatic key.
Ghosts Clean
G0 - keyswitch played hard
Ghost notes (also known as dead notes) on a guitar don’t have a clear
pitch, instead they have an almost percussive character and are mostly
used between phrases or chords. A typical example is the Chucka-Chucka
sound which is also based on this articulation. The Ghosts Clean
articulation is an evenly played variation of the Chucka-Chucka notes.
Ghosts Dirty
G0 - keyswitch played soft
Electri6ity
The Ghosts Dirty articulation is based on the typical chucka-chucka sound
(which is also available via trigger keyswitches). It’s a very percussive
articulation with no clear pitch.
Articulation
Slides
Keyswitch
A0 - keyswitch active as long as is
pressed
Slides are an important articulation on the guitar. On a guitar it’s possible
to slide from each fret to any other fret on the same string in different
speeds. ELECTRI6ITY allows you to do this on its virtual fretboard. It is able
to play two different kind of slides which can be played on a guitar: a socalled ‘slide in’ where you slide into a note (from down to 4 frets below),
and slides from each fret to each other fret on the same string. You can
play a ‘slide in’ by pressing the slides keyswitch and playing one note at a
time. If you have more than one note pressed, ELECTRI6ITY slides from the
last note to the new note if possible (if the new notes is played on the
same string, which the engine tries to do if the slide keyswitch is pressed).
ELECTRI6ITY also can play one fret and two fret slides for both single
notes and chords. For this effect, use the the slide trigger keys (G#6 and
A#6). Simply play a note or chord, keep it pressed, and use the slide keys
to move the note/chord on the virtual fretboard.
Harmonics
D#5
Playing harmonics is another way to create artificial overtones on a guitar.
These are performed by lightly touching the strings on the fretboard while
picking the string. Harmonics won’t sound good on all frets, so guitarists
typically use certain positions on the fretboard to play harmonics (for
example on the 5th, 7th or 12th fret).
ELECTRI6ITY’s articulations can be complex to understand. If you need to
reset to the way the instrument originally loaded, just press C0 (Muted<>Sustain [AMT]) and F#0 (polyphonic mode, discussed next) in order to
reset to the original (and most commonly used) articulation and mode.
A full chart of all the keyswitches can be found at the end of this manual.
18
19
ELECTRI6ITY | Getting Started | Step 3 | Play Modes
ELECTRI6ITY can be played in three modes: polyphonic (‘POLY’),
monophonic (‘SOLO’), and legato (‘LEGATO’). The polyphonic mode allows
chord playing and strumming, while monophonic and legato modes do not.
All the articulations covered in the previous chapter can be used in the first
two modes. The legato mode, however, is special: it automatically selects
sustain notes, hammer ons, pull offs or single fret slides according to your
playing, which results in very fluid legato lines without needing to manually
choose the correct articulation for every note you play, which is difficult
when playing a real-time solo.
Mode
Keyswitch
Poly
F#0
Solo
G#0
Legato Muted
A#0 - keyswitch played soft
Legato
A#0 - keyswitch played hard
Hint: You might have noticed that a slight amount of additional latency
is noticeable in POLY, but not in SOLO and LEGATO mode. Here is the
reason why:
Electri6ity
If you play a chord on the keyboard, usually each key might arrive
slightly earlier or later than the other keys of the chord. To compensate
for this sloppiness and to correctly detect a chord, the engine has to
wait for all chord notes to arrive. By default, this time defaults to 24ms.
However, if you play very accurately, you can lower the detection time.
Go to the ‘Settings Page’, select ‘Calibration’ and change the ‘Chord
Detection | Time’ parameter. The chord detection is only active in Poly
mode, since Solo and Legato are monophonic modes and require no
chord detection.
If you mainly use the library in a sequencer environment, you can switch
‘Chord Detection | Mode’ on the same page to ‘Sequencer (POLY, SOLO,
LEGATO)’. This has two benefits when working in a sequencer: first, you
can adjust the timing of all ELECTRI6ITY MIDI tracks to compensate for
the delay, and second, you can mix chords with legato and solo lines
without needing to switch the play mode to Poly. The suggested latency
compensation time is displayed, if you click on the ‘Setup’ button on the
‘Performance Page’
ELECTRI6ITY | Getting Started | Step 4 | Playing Techniques
ELECTRI6ITY offers easy access to some guitar playing techniques which
are hard to emulate on a keyboard. The special keyswitches allow realistic
tremolo picking, trills, and slides.
Play Techniques
Tremolo Picking
Keyswitch
A#-1 + Any Notes – keep keyswitch
pressed and play notes
Press and hold the Tremolo Picking keyswitch. All notes played while the
keyswitch is pressed will be played with tremolo.
Trill 1 Fret (half step)
C#0 + Any Notes – keep keyswitch
pressed and play notes
Press and hold the Trill 1 Fret keyswitch. All notes played while the
keyswitch is pressed will be played as half-step fingered trills.
Trill 2 Frets (whole step)
D#0 + Any Notes – keep keyswitch
pressed and play notes
Press and hold the Trill 2 Frets keyswitch. All notes played while the
keyswitch is pressed will be played as whole-step fingered trills.
Slide 1 Fret Down
Any Notes + G#6 – keep notes
pressed and play keyswitch
Play a note or chord keep it pressed, then play the Slide 1 Fret Down
keyswitch.
Slide 1 Fret Up
Any Notes + A#6 – keep notes
pressed and play keyswitch
Play a note or chord keep it pressed, then play the Slide 1 Fret Up
keyswitch.
Unison Bends
Two notes played together in a
minor second or second interval
By playing two notes together (at a minor second or major second
interval) and using the pitch bend wheel to bend the lower note up till both
match in pitch, you’ll get that typical guitar effect so often used in all kind
of genres. In ELECTRI6ITY, no keyswitch is necessary to play Unison Bends.
Simply play two notes together and use the pitch bend wheel. Intervals
greater than a whole step will not trigger a unison bend.
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ELECTRI6ITY | Getting Started | Step 5 | Strumming and Picking
ELECTRI6ITY allows you to strum and pick notes to create typical
strumming or picking patterns. Strum and pick trigger keys are very
important to work around the one of the biggest problems which occurs if
you try to mimic a guitar on the keyboard: On a guitar you can repeat notes
or chords without stopping them first, but on a keyboard you have to release
a key before you can press it again. This small gap makes it hard to play
convincing repetitions on a keyboard. The solution to this problem are
trigger keys. With such keys, you can easily play a chord, keep it pressed,
then simply re-strum it without any gap at all.
Hint: There are more trigger keys in ELECTRI6ITY than listed below, but
they don’t fit into the play range of an 88-key keyboard anymore. That’s
why we offer two different keyswitch/trigger key layouts which can be
changed on the ‘Settings Page’ > ‘Keyswitches’. All keyswitches/trigger
keys in this manual are referring to the default layout ‘Layout 1 (Std.)’. If
you want to change the position of certain keyswitches or trigger keys
on the keyboard, that page will allow you to change them. If you won’t
need some of the standard keyswitches/trigger keys, you can simply
move them out of the 88-key range and move others in to replace them.
Electri6ity
Strumming / Picking / Mute
Trigger Key
Chucka Up
D#6 – keep trigger key pressed
Chucka Dn
D6 – keep trigger key pressed
Dead-Muted Strum Up
C#6 – keep trigger key pressed
Dead-Muted Strum Dn
C6 – keep trigger key pressed
Muted Strum Up
A#5 – keep trigger key pressed
Muted Strum Dn
A5 – keep trigger key pressed
Half-Muted Strum Up
G#5 – keep trigger key pressed
Half-Muted Strum Dn
G5 – keep trigger key pressed
Strum Up (Sustain Notes)
F#5 – keep trigger key pressed
Strum Dn (Sustain Notes)
F5 – keep trigger key pressed
Pick String 6 [AMT] (lowest string)
C7 – keep trigger key pressed
Pick String 5 [AMT]
B6 – keep trigger key pressed
Pick String 4 [AMT]
A6 – keep trigger key pressed
Strumming / Picking / Mute
Trigger Key
Pick String 3 [AMT]
G6 – keep trigger key pressed
Pick String 2 [AMT]
F6 – keep trigger key pressed
Pick String 1 [AMT] (highest string)
E6 – keep trigger key pressed
Pick Lowest Note & Clear Chord
Memory [AMT]
B5 – keep trigger key pressed
Palm Mute Strings
E5
Hand Mute Strings
F#6
Hint: All trigger keys with an [AMT] tag are controlling the morphing
not the velocity. For example, in the default articulation ‘Muted <->
Sustain’, playing those trigger keys hard will trigger sustain notes, while
playing them soft will trigger dead muted notes.
ELECTRI6ITY | Getting Started | Step 6 | Release Noise
If you want to mute a sustained tone on a guitar, it’s almost impossible to do
this without causing a release noise. While professional guitarists try their
best to avoid this kind of noises, they are still audible and without them a
guitar simply wouldn’t sound like a guitar. We captured a wide range of
these release noises during the recording process of ELECTRI6ITY.
The following pages contain an overview of all available release noises in
ELECTRI6ITY. The table shows the release noise and how it is selected. We
are also going to describe each noise and show example situations in which
it might be useful.
You can set up default releases for Poly, Mono, and Legato modes (see
>Settings Page | 10.1-10.3). Those releases are used if no manual overwrite
via keyswitch takes place. ELECTRI6ITY also watches your playing and
doesn’t play release samples in situations where no release noise would be
produced on a real guitar (for example, repetitions of notes).
The keyswitches for the release notes are ‘Combined Keyswitches,’ which are
triggered by holding the Release Selection Keyswitch (A-1) plus one of the
keys to the right of it. This was necessary to allow the manual selection of all
release samples within the limited range of keys available on a keyboard.
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Release Noise
Release Finger Noise
Keyswitch
A-1 + A#-1 – played together, active
as long as pressed
When the finger is released from the fretboard, a short noise is audible
which almost sounds like a very soft pull off. This is the default release for
single notes.
Release Finger Noise Short
A-1 + B-1 – played together, active
as long as pressed
Shorter variation of ‘Release Finger Noise.’
Release Mixed I
A-1 + C0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
If Release Mixed I is active, one the following release samples is randomly
chosen: Release Finger Noise, Release Finger Noise Short, Release Slide
Noise Down, or Release Slide Noise Up.
Release Mixed II
A-1 + C#0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
If Release Mixed II is active, one the following release samples is randomly
chosen: Release Finger Noise, Release Finger Noise Short, Release Slide
Noise Down, Release Slide Noise Up, Release Slide Short, or Release Pick
Noise.
Release Hand Mute
A-1 + D0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
It’s possible to mute sustained notes on a guitar by putting your left or
right hand on the fretboard while the notes still sound, which results in the
characteristic ‘Hand Mute’ sound.
Release Palm Mute
A-1 + D#0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
It’s possible to mute sustained notes on a guitar by pushing your palm
against the string while the notes still sound, which results in the
characteristic and percussive ‘Palm Mute’ sound.
Release Pick Noise
A-1 + E0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
If you touch sustaining strings with your plectrum, the sound will stop and
a soft ‘click’ will be audible.
Electri6ity
Release Slide Down Short
A-1 + F0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
Stopping a note with a short slide down is a typical guitar playing
technique. ‘Slide Down Short’ results in a very short slide on release.
Release Noise
Release Slide Down Medium
Keyswitch
A-1 + F#0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
This is a longer variation of ‘Release Slide Down Short’. Note: for medium
long slides you have to play a note on a higher position on the fretboard
(fret 5 or higher) because otherwise a medium long slide isn’t possible
since it’s not possible to slide beyond the nut.
Release Slide Down Long
A-1 + G0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
This is a longer variation of ‘Release Slide Down Medium’. Note: for medium
long slides you have to play a note on a higher position on the fretboard
(fret 5 or higher) because otherwise a medium long slide isn’t possible
since it’s not possible to slide beyond the nut.
Release Slide Down 1 Fret
A-1 + G#0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
This is 1-fret variation of ‘Release Slide Down Short’ with a slightly different
tone.
Release Slide Up 1 Fret
A-1 + A0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
This release is like ‘Release Slide Down 1 fret’ but with a slide up.
Release Slide Noise Down
A-1 + A#0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
Slide noise is the noise which is audible if you change the position on the
fretboard by softly sliding over the strings.
Release Slide Noise Up
A-1 + B0 – played together, active
as long as pressed
Slide noise is the noise which is audible if you change the position on the
fretboard by softly sliding over the strings.
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CHAPTER 05 / deatils
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CHAPTER 05
ELECTRI6ITY/
DETAILS
ELECTRI6ITY | Details | Performance Page
The Performance Page - which is the default view when first loading an
ELECTRI6ITY instrument - is the most important page for controlling
ELECTRI6ITY. All of the most important parameters are visible and can be
changed on this page. If a certain parameter is changed by your playing (by
velocity for example or if you changed a CC) it’s displayed in the table in the
middle of the performance view >[2]. If you want to change a certain
parameter manually, you can also use your mouse by simply clicking in the
corresponding field and drawing the change while keeping the left mouse
button pressed. You’ll immediately get feedback what parameter you have
changed and to which value it has been changed.
Electri6ity
If you click on the Setup Button >[1], you’ll open the basic setup page. Here
you can change the two play modes of ELECTRI6ITY - which we are going
to explain later - here >[4]. You can also change the CC assignment of the
basic playback parameters >[2] and >[3]. You can close the Setup Page by
clicking on the Setup Button again >[1].
Performance Page | Changing CC assignments
First we are going to explain how you’ll be able to change the CC
assignment of the basic performance parameters: Morph AMT, Morph VMT,
Guitar Pickup, Guitar Tone, Guitar Volume, Strum Time, Strum Direction, Pick
Direction, Pick Position, Vibrato Type, Vibrato Strength, Vibrato Speed,
Volume Releases and Volume Noise. To enter the setup mode, click on the
Setup Button on the performance page >[1]. If the button is highlighted
you’ll see that the display has changed and additional elements are shown:
>[3] and >[4].
To change one of the basic performance parameters, click on the
corresponding field inside the table >[2]. The field will be highlighted and
you’ll be able to change the CC number in the edit box below >[3]. Repeat
this step for all CC assignments you want to change. After finishing, simply
click on the Setup Button >[1] again to close the Setup Mode.
Performance Page | Changing Play Mode
ELECTRI6ITY has two different ways to control all morphed articulations for example ‘Muted <-> Sustain’, which is available in all articulations with an
[AMT] tag in their name (AMT = ‘Articulation Morphing Technology’). You
can either control the morphing like you would control typical X-Fade
patches (with the mod wheel for example) or you can control it via velocity,
which allows you to morph/switch from muted notes to sustain notes by
playing soft or hard. Each mode has it’s own benefits, so it’s up to you to
play with them and see what suits your playing better.
To change the Play Mode, click on the Setup Button on the performance
page >[1], and you’ll see the control buttons added at the bottom of the
interface: >[4].
You switch the mode by choosing either ‘Control articulation morphing by
velocity if an AMT-Articulation is selected’ or ‘Control articulation morphing
by CC if an AMT-Articulation is selected’ >[4].
We are now going to explain you the difference between these two modes.
The following tables show all available articulations in ELECTRI6ITY (first
column) and how they are controlled (second, third and fourth column) in
the different Play Modes. We also going to explain how you’ll benefit from an
expression pedal if used with ELECTRI6ITY.
It’s important to realize that depending on the Play Mode you have chosen,
the morphing articulation (colored red in the tables) behave differently from
the non-morph articulations.
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Mode: ‘Control articulation morphing by velocity if an AMT-Articulation is
selected’ In this mode all morph articulations with an [AMT] tag can be
morphed by MIDI velocity, while their volume is controlled by MIDI CC.
Electri6ity
Articulation
Volume
controlled
by
Morphing
controlled
by
Vibrato
controlled
by
Sustain (B-1)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Half-Muted (B-1)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Muted<->Sustain
[AMT] (C0)
Mod wheel
MIDI Velocity
MIDI Velocity
(high)
Muted<->Half-Muted
[AMT] (C0)
Mod wheel
MIDI Velocity
MIDI Velocity
(high)
Sustain<->Harmonics Mod wheel
Octave [AMT] (D0)
MIDI Velocity
MIDI Velocity
(high)
Sustain<->Harmonics Mod wheel
Fifth [AMT] (D0)
MIDI Velocity
MIDI Velocity
(high)
Muted Hammer On<>Hammer On [AMT]
(E0)
Mod wheel
MIDI Velocity
MIDI Velocity
(high)
Muted Pull Off<>Pull Off [AMT] (E0)
Mod wheel
MIDI Velocity
MIDI Velocity
(high)
Harmonics (D#5)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Ghosts Clean (G0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Ghosts Dirty (G0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Slides (A0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
FX (F0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Mode: ‘Control articulation morphing by CC if an AMT-Articulation is
selected’ This mode causes a MIDI continuous controller (MIDI CC message)
to control which articulation is selected. Therefore, MIDI velocity is
controlling volume. All morph articulations with an [AMT] tag can be
morphed by CC in this mode.The standard CC to control the morphing is the
mod wheel (CC#1).
Articulation
Volume
controlled
by
Morphing
controlled
by
Vibrato
controlled
by
Sustain (B-1)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Half-Muted (B-1)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Muted<->Sustain
[AMT] (C0)
MIDI Velocity
Mod wheel
Mod wheel
Muted<->Half-Muted
[AMT] (C0)
MIDI Velocity
Mod wheel
Mod wheel
Sustain<->Harmonics MIDI Velocity
Octave [AMT] (D0)
Mod wheel
Mod wheel
Sustain<->Harmonics MIDI Velocity
Fifth [AMT] (D0)
Mod wheel
Mod wheel
Muted Hammer On<>Hammer On [AMT]
(E0)
MIDI Velocity
Mod wheel
Mod wheel
Muted Pull Off<>Pull Off [AMT] (E0)
MIDI Velocity
Mod wheel
Mod wheel
Harmonics (D#5)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Ghosts Clean (G0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Ghosts Dirty (G0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Slides (A0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
FX (F0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Here‘s an example of how the ‘Control articulation morphing by CC if an
AMT-Articulation is selected’ mode can be used with expression pedal
(which traditionally sends CC#11) functioning as the controller: All morph
articulations with an [AMT] tag can be easily morphed with your Expression
Pedal in this mode. Simply assign CC#11 Expression to the AMT Morph
parameter > [see ‘Performance Page | Changing CC assignments’] and
switch to ‘Control articulation morphing by CC if an AMT-Articulation is
selected’ > [see ‘Performance Page | Changing Play Mode].
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Here’s an example of how the ‘Control articulation morphing by CC if an
AMT-Articulation is selected’ mode can be used with expression pedal
(which traditionally sends CC#11) functioning as the controller: All morph
articulations with an [AMT] tag can be easily morphed with your Expression
Pedal in this mode. Simply assign CC#11 Expression to the AMT Morph
parameter > [see ‘Performance Page | Changing CC assignments’] and
switch to ‘Control articulation morphing by CC if an AMT-Articulation is
selected’ > [see ‘Performance Page | Changing Play Mode]
Electri6ity
Articulation
Volume
controlled
by
Morphing
controlled
by
Vibrato
controlled
by
Sustain (B-1)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Half-Muted (B-1)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Muted<->Sustain
[AMT] (C0)
MIDI Velocity
Expression
Mod wheel
Muted<->Half-Muted
[AMT] (C0)
MIDI Velocity
Expression
Mod wheel
Sustain<->Harmonics MIDI Velocity
Octave [AMT] (D0)
Expression
Mod wheel
Sustain<->Harmonics MIDI Velocity
Fifth [AMT] (D0)
Expression
Mod wheel
Muted Hammer On<>Hammer On [AMT]
(E0)
MIDI Velocity
Expression
Mod wheel
Muted Pull Off<>Pull Off [AMT] (E0)
MIDI Velocity
Expression
Mod wheel
Harmonics (D#5)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Ghosts Clean (G0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Ghosts Dirty (G0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
Slides (A0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
FX (F0)
MIDI Velocity
n/a
Mod wheel
ELECTRI6ITY | Details | Settings Page
The settings page allows you to tweak the details of ELECTRI6ITY almost
infinitely. While the most important parameters controlling playback can be
found on the Performance Page, the Settings Page is designed to give you
the possibility to control almost every aspect of the guitar simulation. To
navigate through the different settings groups use the menu on the top >[1],
which provides access to major areas of ELECTRI6ITY’s functionality:
Strings, Fretboard, Tone, Playing, Legato, Strumming, Picking, Vibrato, Noise,
Releases, Humanize, Calibration, and Keyswitches.
Most pages contains more options than visible at first glance. You can scroll
through the different options and settings of one group by using the scroll
wheel >[2]. To change a certain parameter use the knobs on the right side
>[3]. If you want to control this knob via CC, use the CC menu >[4] and
simply assign a CC number.
On the following pages we’ll give you a in-depth description of each
parameter:
1 Strings
1.1 Tuning You can change the tuning of the guitar (from default
E-Tuning down to C-Tuning) here.
1 .2 Selection The default parameter is ‘Auto’ which tells the engine to
choose the best fitting string according to your playing. However this
control also allows you to force the engine to select a specific string to
play on.
1 .3 Selection | Auto If ‘Auto’ is chosen (‘Strings | Selection’) you can
change the selection behavior here. You can switch between a dynamic
mode or different static string selection modes. If you chose ‘Dynamic,’
consider that most notes in the play range of a guitar can be played on
more than one string. A#1, for example, can be played on the 6th string
on the 6th fret or on the 5th string on the first fret. So it was necessary
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to develop an algorithm which chooses the best fitting string according
to your playing. But this means that if you play A#1, it won’t always
sound exactly the same. If you don’t like the idea that most keys will
produce different timbres in different situations, you can switch to one
of the static modes. That way each note on the keyboard will always be
played on the same fret on the fretboard. Each of the static modes
(‘Simple’, ‘Default’, ‘Enhanced’) has a slightly different timbre which will
suit different styles of playing. The ‘Static 3-Note Mapping’ mode was
particularly designed for fluid legato or solo playing.
1 .4 Dynamic Sympathetic Resonance String instruments have a
characteristic behavior: not only the string you plucked last will sound,
but its vibration will make the other strings resonate as well. This results
in an fuller tone and sometimes adds a little disharmony, which is very
characteristic for chord playing on a guitar. Since Dynamic Sympathetic
Resonance is quite CPU hungry you can select the resonating strings
here (for example only the highest E-String) or you can turn the
resonance engine off.
1 .5 Dynamic Sympathetic Resonance | Strength You can select the
strength of the dynamic sympathetic resonance here (from subtle to
strong)
1.6 Volume You can change the volume of each string here.
1 .7 Velocity->Volume You can change the velocity to volume
modulation for each string here. Higher values respond more
dynamically, while lower values respond less dynamically.
Electri6ity
2 Fretboard
.1 Position The default parameter is ‘Auto,’ so the engine chooses the
2
best fitting position on the fretboard according to your playing however
you can force the engine to select a certain position to play in. For
example, if you select ‘5’ the engine tries to play around the fifth fret.
.2 Position | Auto If ‘Auto’ is chosen (‘Fretboard | Position’) you can
2
change the way the engine determines the best fitting position. You
can, for example, tell the engine to prefer lower or higher positions. Or
you can tell the engine to stay in the current position as long as
possible. If you choose ‘+’ or ‘++’ it means that the engine tries hard ‘+’
or even harder ‘++’ to play in the selected position.
2.3 Position | Harmonics When the ‘Harmonics’ articulation is in use,
this command tells the engine on which fret to play the harmonic. The
default mode is ‘By AMT,’ which means that the articulation morphing
(AMT) is controlled by the mod wheel in the ‘Harmonics’ articulation (by
default).
.4 Position | Chucka-Chuckas You can tell the engine where to play a
2
Chucka-Chucka (triggered with the Chucka-Chucka keys) here. The
default setting is ‘By Last Position,’ which means that the ChuckaChucka is played on the fretboard where you played your last chord or
note.
2.5 Position | Hand Mute (Release Sample) On the guitar it’s possible
to mute the strings after playing with your left or right hand. You can
select the position you want to mute the strings with your hand.
3 Tone
.1 Body Sustain You select the amount of body sustain here. Higher
3
values means more sustain while shorter values will result in a quicker
stop of the notes.
3.2 Hammer Ons/Pull Offs On a guitar you can play a Hammer On or a
Pull Off on a string currently not sounding (also known as ‘tapping’) or
you can play a sustain note and, while the last note is still sounding, do a
Hammer On or a Pull Off (for example if you play a trill). For realistic
legato playing, ELECTRI6ITY includes both types, since they have a
quite different timbre. You can select the timbre of the Hammer Ons
and Pull Offs here, which will be used if you switch to the ‘Hammer On/
Pull Offs’ articulation.
3.3 Chucka-Chucka You can switch the timbre of the Chucka-Chuckas
here: a more clean sounding timbre or a dirty (and typical) ChuckaChucka sound. The clean sounding ghost notes are recorded with single
picking, so they are very even, while the dirty Chucka-Chuckas are
recorded strummed, so they are more dirty and less even.
3.4 Strumming For each articulation which can be played either as
single notes or as chords, we recorded two variations: horizontal picking
and vertical picking. If you strum a chord on a guitar you hold the
plectrum in a more vertical position opposite to playing single notes
(more horizontal). This results in a slightly different timbre. Most players
also change the way they hold the plectrum while playing slightly. This
little nuances of timbre were captured in the recording process of
ELECTRI6ITY. Horizontal picking is more even and darker, while vertical
picking has more variation and is brighter. You can also tell the engine
to mix horizontal and vertical picking to get more variation. For rock
and metal we recommend vertical strumming, while horizontal
strumming might sound better if used in jazz or ballads.
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3.5 Picking This control governs single note playing, and works the
same way as described in 3.4.
4 Playing
4.1 Trills This control changes the speed of trills (when used with the
trill keyswitches).
4.2 Tremolo Picking This changes the speed of tremolo picking (when
used with the tremolo keyswitch).
4.3 Silent Mode (Pick And Strum-Keys Only) We recommend you
assign this CC to a pedal or button/controller knob on your keyboard,
since it’s very useful to switch to Silent Mode and back. If you play in
Silent Mode no key in the play range will sound. You trigger your playing
with the strum and picking keys only. That way you can for example
play non-sounding chords with your left hand while picking them with
your right hand and the strumming/picking keyswitches. That way you
can easily play picking patterns or slow chord arpeggios typical for any
kind of music in which a picked guitar is common.
4.4 Pitch Bend | Range You can change the pitch bend range here.
4.5 Pitch Bend | Auto Unison Bends You can turn on or off Auto
Unison Bend detection here. If you set it to ‘On’ you can simply play two
notes together (either a half step or a whole step) and use the pitchwheel to get the typical unison-bend sound, which bends one note to
meet the other (a common guitar technique).
4.6 Slide Mode | Threshold You can change the threshold for slide
playing here. A slide from one fret to the next is only played if the first
note was held longer than the threshold time in ms before the next note
was played.
4.7 Slide Mode | Slide In You can change the length of the ‘Slide In’
slides here (2 to 4 frets)
Electri6ity
4.8 Slide Mode | Slide Speed You can change the slide speed from
100% (default) to 150% (faster) here.
4.9 Sustain Pedal You can change the way your sustain pedal will
affect the engine here. You have three options: ‘Standard’, which is
classical sustain pedal behavior: notes will sound as long as you press
the pedal, but still take into account that each string itself is
monophonic. So each note on the same string will mute the last note
played on this string ‘Enhanced AI chords’, which means classical
behavior for single notes, but each chord will mute the last chord (even
if the sustain pedal is pressed). ‘Enhanced AI chords + singles’, means
that each new single note or chord mutes the last played single note or
chord. But the last played single note or chord will be held as long as
you press the sustain pedal.
4.10 Guitar Chords ELECTRI6ITY can automatically translate keyboardvoiced chords into guitar-voiced chords. You can turn this feature on or
off here. You can switch to ‘Detect Guitar Chords (extended range)’
which means that there will be up to 5 variations of each chord
depending on the octave you play the chord in, while standard range
means up to 3 variations depending on the octave. If you turn ‘Guitar
Chords’ your chords aren’t extended to guitar chords, but of course are
still transferred to the best fitting position on the virtual fretboard.
4.11 Guitar Chords | Minimum Keys The ELECTRI6ITY guitar chord
engine detects ‘shortcuts’ for common chords. If you want to use these
‘shortcuts’ (where you can leave out optional fifths or thirds for
example) you can switch to a minimum of two keys. The default value
for the guitar chord detection is three notes.
4.12 Guitar Chords | Display Changes the way the chord names are
displayed (either F# or Gb for example). Default setting is ‘Sharp’.
4.13 Power Chords You can enable or disable the power chord
detection here. You can also add an automatic octave to each power
chord here, so if you play ‘C2, G2’ the engine will play a power chord
‘C2, G2, C3’. Default is ‘On’.
4.14 Switch Sustain To Hammer On/Pull Off If you play fast solos on a
guitar, you most likely won’t pick every note. Instead you will switch to
Hammer Ons and Pull Offs from time to time in faster passages.
ELECTRI6ITY can emulate this behavior and automatically switches to
Hammer Ons and Pull Offs if the artificial intelligence thinks it will sound
better. It works in the ‘muted<->sustain’ articulation (which is the
default when loading ELECTRI6ITY) and in the ‘muted<->half muted’
articulation.
.15 Switch Sustain To Hammer On/Pull Off | Threshold You can
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change the threshold for the Hammer On/Pull Off switch here. If you
play faster than the threshold, a Hammer On/Pull Off is played when
possible.
4.16 Muted Tightness You can change the way palm muted notes are
played here. Tighter means, you add more pressure with your palm and
the notes will get shorter while more open means that you play with
less pressure. Different settings may be appropriate for different songs
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and styles of playing. You can play with this setting and see if a more
tight or more open playing suits a particular song better.
5 Legato
5.1 Mode You can choose between two different legato modes here
(‘Legato I’ = typical legato playing, ‘Legato II’ = right hand legato
playing) and a tapping mode.
5.2 Glue | Hammer Ons/Pull Offs Higher values smooth the legato,
while lower values leave more of the attack portion.
5.3 Glue | Slides Higher values smooth the legato, while lower values
leave more of the attack portion.
5.4 Glue | Smooth Attacks Additional attack smoothing. Too high
values may sound unrealistic if used with clean amps.
5.5 One Fret-Slides If you play legato on a guitar you can either play a
Hammer On or a Pull Off or you can play a slide to the next note. You
can change the way the engine chooses to slide with the setting. If you
select ‘Time Threshold’ a slide is played if a note is held longer then the
time threshold before the next note is played. If you choose ‘Time
Threshold+Velo.<Last Velo.’ a slide is chosen if a note is held longer then
the time threshold before the next note is played and the next note is
played with a lower velocity than the previous note.
5.6 One Fret-Slides | Time Threshold You can change the time
threshold for slide playing here (see 6.5 On Fret-Slides).
5.7 One Fret-Slides | Limit You can limit the number of slides played in
a row here. On a guitar it’s not possible to play slides for a unlimited
number of times since with each slide the volume drops a little bit. A
guitar player will play sustain notes or Hammer Ons/Pull Offs between
the slides while playing legato. You can simulate this behavior with this
setting.
Electri6ity
5.8 Retrigger You can switch the legato retriggering on or off here.
Legato retrigger allows you to play trills easily. If you play let’s say A2
and you press A#2 a Hammer On is played. If you keep A2 pressed and
release A#2 a A2 Pull Off is played again. You can turn it of or turn it on
for Solo, Legato or Solo and Legato mode.
5.9 Retrigger | Chord Rejection If two notes are played within the
Chord-Rejection time the engine assumes that a chord is played and
turns of the retrigger engine for these notes.
6 Strumming
6.1 Speed | Downstroke You can set the strumming speed for
downstrokes here.
6.2 Speed | Upstroke You can set the strumming speed for upstrokes
here.
6.3 Speed This control allows you to change the way the engine
interprets the strumming speeds. If you choose relative time, the speed
settings 6.1 and 6.2 mean the strum time from string to string: If you set
the strum speed to 60ms for example and you play C2, G2, C3, the
engine plays C2, waits 60ms, plays G2, waits 60ms and finally plays C3.
If you chose absolute time the settings 6.1. and 6.2 mean the strum time
of the whole chord. So if you play C2, G2, C3, the engine plays C2, waits
30ms, plays G2, waits 30ms and finally C3 since all notes of the chords
will be played within 60ms in this example.
6.4 Strum Angle If you strum a chord on a guitar, your hand will most
likely not move perfectly horizontally. This results in a slight timbre
change since the plectrum position will change slightly from string to
string. You can define this strum angle here.
6.5 Strum Range Often, a guitarist won’t strum all notes in a chord with
each stroke. You can change the number of notes that will be played
here. We recommend to automate this setting and to slightly vary it for
more realistic strumming.
6.6 Strum Range | Auto Variation You can automatically vary the
setting 6.5 here. If you choose ‘Upstroke-1’ the upstroke strum will
always leave out the the lowest note. With ‘Upstroke+’ the engine will
randomize the number of notes played on an upstroke. If you choose
‘Upstroke++’ the engine will add the same randomizing, but with more
possible variation. ‘All Strokes+’ and ‘All Strokes++’ will do the same, but
not only for upstrokes.
.7 Notes | Downstroke Settings 6.5 and 6.6 allows you to vary the
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strumming by not always playing all notes in a chord. Here you can
define which notes should be played in this case (always prefer the
highest or lowest notes, for example).
6.8 Notes | Upstroke Settings 6.5 and 6.6 allows you to vary the
strumming by not always playing all notes in a chord. You can define
here, which notes should be played in this case (always prefer the
highest or lowest notes for example).
6.9 Acceleration | Downstroke You can accelerate or slow down the
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the strumming here. As you strum the strings you get faster or you slow
down. You can play with this setting to find the best way to play a
certain phrase.
6.10 Acceleration | Upstroke You can accelerate or slow down the
strumming here. As you strum the strings you get faster or you slow
down. You can play with this setting to find the best way to play a
certain phrase.
6.11 Velocity->Strum Speed Higher values means that if you play with
higher velocity your strum speed gets faster, while lower velocity
playing leads to slower strumming.
6.12 Velocity->Lower If Muted If you set this value to any other value
than 0%, the more muted you play a note, the softer it is played. Since
the articulation morphing of the ‘sustain<->muted’ articulation for
example is controlled by velocity, the softer you hit a key, the more
muted a note is played. To get some velocity to volume control back,
you can raise this setting.
6.13 Auto Open Muted Chords Slightly If you strum muted notes on a
guitar, it’s easy for you to mute the lower strings (E, A, D) with your
palm, but if you get to the higher strings (G, B, E) you would need more
pressure to make all notes sound muted exactly the same way. But since
more pressure also detunes the notes, there is a trade-off between
muted and detuned. For example, if you play fast muted riffs, you won’t
be able to palm mute all strings exactly the same way. You can simulate
this way of palm muting with this setting. Higher settings means that
you start with very muted notes and as your strum progresses the
muted notes are played with slightly less palm pressure, so they sound
more open.
Electri6ity
6.14 Auto Force Alternation On a guitar it’s not possible to play
downstroke or upstroke strums as fast as if you would play them with
alternate strumming. Playing 1/16 notes at 120BPM with constant
downstroke already is pretty fast. The engine can detect if it’s still
possible to keep a constant down- or upstroke direction. You can set
the time threshold to switch to alternate strumming here.
6.15 Auto Reset Direction If a note is held longer than the threshold
time you set here before the next note is played, the picking direction is
reset. So if you have been playing with alternate picking because of a
fast phrase (see 6.14), the engine switches back to it’s default picking
direction after this threshold time has passed and no note has been
played.
6.16 Auto Reset Position If a chord is held longer than the threshold
time you set here before the next one is played, the position on the
virtual fretboard is reset. So next time you play a chord it’s played in the
lowest possible position again.
6.17 Strum Energy 1-6 On a guitar you lose some strum energy with
each string you strum. You can fine-tune this energy loss here.
7 Picking
7.1 Velocity->Lower If Muted If you set this value to any other value
than 0%, the more muted you play a note the softer it is played. Since
the articulation morphing of the ‘AMT Full’ articulation (for example) is
controlled by velocity, the softer you hit a key, the more muted a note is
played. To get some volume modulation back, you can raise this setting.
7.2 Auto Force Alternation On a guitar it’s not possible to play
downstroke or upstroke picked notes as fast as if you would play them
with alternate picking. Playing 1/16 notes at 120BPM with constant
downstroke already is pretty fast. The engine can detect if it’s still
possible to keep a constant down- or upstroke direction. You can set
the time threshold to switch to alternate picking here.
7.3 Auto Force Sweep If you play notes on different strings very fast
(for example arpeggios), you most likely keep the picking direction as
long as possible (known as sweep picking or economy picking). You can
set the time threshold to emulate this behavior here. If two following
notes are played on different strings within the time you set here, the
picking direction is set to sweep picking. (All notes starting on string 6
(lowest string) up to string 1 (highest string) are played downstroke, and
starting on string 1 down to string 6 are played upstroke.
7.4 Auto Reset Direction If a note is held longer than the threshold
time you set here before the next note is played, the picking direction is
reset. So if you have been playing with alternate picking because of a
fast phrase (see 7.2), the engine switches back to it’s default picking
direction after this threshold time has passed and no further notes have
been played.
7.5 Auto Reset Position If a note is held longer than the threshold time
you set here before the next note is played, the position on the virtual
fretboard is reset. So next time you play a note it’s played in the lowest
possible position again.
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8 Vibrato
Hint: ELECTRI6ITY has an advanced vibrato engine which is capable of
recreating different realistic sounding human vibratos. The results are
far superior to those which use LFO vibrato with their static and
machine-like pitch modulation.
8.1 Control Mode This controls the way the vibrato strength is
modulated. If you set it to ‘by CC’ vibrato strength is controlled by CC
(the CC number can be changed on the performance page). If you set it
to ‘by Aftertouch’ vibrato strength is controlled by monophonic
aftertouch. If you set it to ‘by AMT’, vibrato strength is changed by the
articulation morph amount. The latter is a pretty easy way to control the
vibrato strength, since the most common articulation ‘sustain<->muted’
is a morphing articulation where the morphing is controlled by velocity
(per default). This means that you can control the vibrato by velocity as
well: the higher the MIDI velocity, the more vibrato is applied. Keep in
mind that velocity doesn’t control the volume of the AMT articulations.
It controls the morphing. This means you can morph from muted notes
to sustain notes to sustain notes with vibrato for example.
8.2 Control Mode | AMT->Vibrato | Threshold If 8.1 is set to ‘by AMT’
you can specify the velocity threshold here. All notes played with a
higher velocity than the threshold will be played with vibrato (the higher
the velocity, the stronger the vibrato will be)
8.3 Type Default You can set up a default vibrato type for each
articulation. So, for example, if you switch to octave pinch harmonics
you can define a vibrato that will be used for pinch harmonics, while
sustain notes can have a different vibrato type.
9 Noise
Electri6ity
9.1 Picking You can control the amount of Pre-Pick noise here. Pre-Pick
noise is noise that happens before the actual note is played. The
plectrum scratches the string, which produces some noise. Note: This
noise is barely audible when played clean, but with high gain sounds
this noise is a important factor for realism. All noises (except for
Background noise) add to the polyphony count, so if you have a less
powerful CPU you can turn them off to minimize CPU consumption.
9.2 Strumming You can control the amount of strum noise here. Strum
noise happens when you strum strings. Each time a string is played, the
next string stops the plectrum for a very short time. The sound
produced on the stop of the plectrum is the strum noise. Note: This
noise is barely audible when played clean, but with high gain sounds
this noise is a important factor for realism. All noises (except for
Background noise) will use more polyphony, so if you have a less
powerful CPU, you can turn them off to minimize CPU consumption.
9.3 Extra Attack If you play powerful staccato riffs or notes, your palm
strikes the string which produces a sound on the higher frets. You can
specify the amount of strike noise here. Note: This noise is barely
audible when played clean, but with high gain sounds this noise is a
important factor for realism. All noises (except for Background noise)
will use more polyphony, so if you have a less powerful CPU, you can
turn them off to minimize CPU consumption.
9.4 Slides Slide noise happens when you move your hand along the
fretboard to reposition your hand. You can specify the amount of this
slide noise here. Note: This noise is barely audible when played clean,
but with high gain sounds this noise is a important factor for realism. All
noises (except for Background noise) will use more polyphony, so if you
have a less powerful CPU, you can turn them off to minimize CPU
consumption.
9.5 Background For ELECTRI6ITY we used a special recording process
which resulted in very high quality samples which are almost completely
noiseless. But since hiss is quite natural for electric guitar recording and
might help to improve realism you can add some amount of
background noise here.
10 Releases
10.1 Default | POLY You can set up the default release articulation for
the POLY mode here.
1 0.2 Default | SOLO You can set up the default release articulation for
the SOLO mode here.
1 0.3 Default | LEGATO You can set up the default release articulation
for the LEGATO mode here.
1 0.4 Duration You can set up the release sample duration here. Since
different playing styles at different speeds might require shorter or
longer release samples you can tweak the length here.
10.5 Volume You can set up the overall release volume here.
1 0.6 Volume | By Note Velocity You can specify how much the release
volume depends on the velocity you played a note with.
10.7 Volume | By Note Held-Time You can specify how much the
release volume is affected by the time you held the note the release
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sample is played after.
1 0.8 Volume | Lower If Muted You can change the volume of the
muted release samples here.
11 Humanize
1 1.1 Double Tracking If you want to do double tracking, load two
instances of the same guitar, then set one guitar to ‘Guitar 1’ and the
other one to ‘Guitar 2’. This helps to eliminate phasing between two
instances of the same guitar.
11.2 Double Tracking | Variation You can setup the amount of timbre
variation here. This helps to eliminate the dreaded machine gun effect.
Note: If two guitars are used for double tracking, in both guitars the
variation settings have to be the same, otherwise some phasing issues
might occur.
1 1.3 Variation | Chuckas/Ghosts You can setup the amount of timbre
variation for chuckas and ghost notes here.
11.4 Sloppiness This is a very important feature of ELECTRI6ITY. Most
quality sampling libraries cut the samples very exactly, so each note
starts immediately after pressing a key. Obviously this is very important
for an even and predictable response to your playing. However: guitar
notes contain a relatively large pre-attack phase (which might vary
slightly in length) where you can hear the plectrum (see 9.1 Picking
Noise) but not the tone itself. Leaving this pre-attack portion in the
samples raises the perceived latency, but increases the realism. To find
the best trade-off between immediate sample start and realism, you can
fine-tune ELECTRI6ITY.
11.5 Sloppiness | Compensate Sustain (avoid gaps) If you leave some
of the pre-attack portion (see 11.4) in the samples, fast repetitions of
notes might have unnatural gaps. ELECTRI6ITY can automatically
compensate for this. We recommend to set the compensation to the
highest sloppiness amount you set in 11.4 and 11.5.
Electri6ity
1 1.6 Pre-Pick Noise | Wait You can setup the delay between pre-pick
noise and the actual ‘tone’ of a picked note here. Per default there is no
delay. But in sequencer environment you can raise the level of realism
by tweaking this setting till you get the best result (this value is strongly
depending on the song tempo and the picking speed you play with).
11.7 Position | Pick You can specify the amount of humanization of the
pick position (between neck and bridge).
1 1.8 Position | Chucka-Chuckas You can setup the amount of
humanization of the Chucka-Chucka position.
1 1.9 Pitch You can setup the amount of pitch variation of each note
here.
1 1.10 Pitch | Sharpen Muted Notes We took great care to sample the
muted notes to make it possible to play alongside other instruments
without pitch issues. On a real guitar, muted notes tend to be played
sharper than the open notes (because of the palm pressure to the
strings). To bring back this effect you can adjust the amount of
sharpness of the muted notes.
1 1.11 Timing You can setup the timing variation here for notes which are
played with the trills or tremolo picking keyswitch pressed.
1 1.12 Velocity You can specify the amount of velocity variation of each
note here.
12 Calibration
12.1 Chord Detection | Time Usually when a chord is played on the
keyboard, not all keys are pressed at the same time. To compensate for
this this sloppiness and to correctly detect a chord, the engine has to
wait for all chord notes to arrive. By default this time is 25ms, but it can
be lowered if your chord playing is very accurate.
12.2 Chord Detection | Mode By default the chord detection is only
active in Poly mode, since Solo and Legato are monophonic modes and
require no chord detection, which means Solo and Legato bypass Chord
Detection | Time (described previously). If you mainly use the library in a
sequencer environment, you can switch ‘Chord Detection | Mode’ on the
same page to ‘Sequencer (POLY, SOLO, LEGATO)’. This has two benefits
working in a sequencer: First, you can adjust the timing of all
ELECTRI6ITY midi tracks to compensate the delay (if you have a chord
detection time of 25ms, set the midi track time compensation to
-25ms). Second, you can mix chords with legato and solo lines without
needing to switch the play mode to Poly.
12.3 Velocity Limit You can set up a velocity limit here, for example if
it’s hard to play high velocity notes on your keyboard. If you set a a
velocity limit of 120 for example, a played velocity of 120 will be handled
as the highest possible velocity of 127 within ELECTRI6ITY.
12.4 CC Limit You can set up a CC limit here, for example if it’s hard to
create high CC numbers with the knobs on your keyboard. If you set a a
CC limit of 120 for example, an incoming CC with an value of 120 will be
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handled as a CC with the highest possible value of 127 within
ELECTRI6ITY.
12.5 VMT | Velocity Curve You can change the characteristic of the
velocity curve for VMT articulations here. If you set the curve to ‘soft’ it
will be easier to play notes with a low velocity. If you set the curve to
‘hard’ it will be easier to play notes with a high velocity.
12.6 VMT | Velocity Curve | Retrigger You can change the
characteristic of the velocity curve for VMT articulations if played with
the trigger keys here. If you set the curve to ‘soft’ it will be easier to play
notes with a low velocity. If you set the curve to ‘hard’ it will be easier to
play notes with a high velocity.
Electri6ity
12.7 VMT | CC Curve You can change the characteristic of the CC
response if controlling the velocity of a VMT articulation via CC here.
1 2.8 AMT | Velocity Curve You can change the characteristic of the
velocity curve for AMT articulations here. Let’s take the ‘AMT Full’
articulation as an example: If you set the curve to ‘soft’ it will be easier
to play muted notes and you’ll need to hit the keys harder for open
notes. If you set the curve to ‘hard’ it will be easier to play open notes
and you’ll need to hit the softer to play muted notes. Play with these
settings until you get an response which fits your playing best.
1 2.9 AMT | Velocity Curve | Retrigger You can change the
characteristic of the velocity curve for AMT articulations if played with
the trigger keys here. Let’s take the ‘AMT Full’ articulation as an
example: If you set the curve to ‘soft’ it will be easier to play muted
notes and you’ll need to hit the keys harder for open notes. If you set
the curve to ‘hard’ it will be easier to play open notes and you’ll need to
play the keys softer to play muted notes. Play with these settings until
you get an response which fits your playing best.
1 2.10 AMT | CC Curve You can change the characteristic of the CC
response if controlling the velocity of a AMT articulation via CC here. If
you switch to ‘soft’ for example, it’s easier to control the lower range of
the morphing, while ‘hard’ gives you more control over the higher range.
1 2.11 VKS Switch Velocity ELECTRI6ITY has keyswitches which reacts
to velocity. You can setup the velocity threshold of these velocity
keyswitches here. The default threshold is 90, which means that the
keyswitch switches if you play it with a velocity lower than 90 or equal
or higher than 90.
CHAPTER 06
If you have been reading the manually carefully to this point, you should
already have a good understanding of how ELECTRI6ITY works. But maybe
you still have some questions left which we can hopefully answer in the
following FAQ.
Can you describe the difference between VMT and AMT in more detail?
VMT means Velocity Morphing Technology. It’s basically a seamless velocity
layer morphing, which is controlled by the velocity you play the notes with.
All ELECTRI6ITY articulations with a VMT tag are played and controlled just
like almost any sampling library out there. The harder you play, the louder
the volume will be.
AMT means Articulation Morphing Technology. All ELECTRI6ITY articulations
with a AMT tag are articulation layers, which can be controlled by the
velocity you play the notes with. For example, if you have a muted <->
sustain articulation selected, low velocities will play dead notes while high
velocities will play sustain notes. Higher velocity will also introduce vibrato
with the default setup.
I would rather control AMT with the mod wheel instead of velocity. Is this
possible?
Yes, easily! Simply go to the ‘Performance Page’, press ‘Setup’ and select
‘Control Articulation Morph by CC’. You’ll now get traditional velocity
sensitivity for all articulations and AMT articulations can now be morphed
via CC. For more information please read the >ELECTRI6ITY | Details |
Peformance Page of this manual.
What is the best way to control ELECTRI6ITY (especially AMT)?
We recommend to use a Expression pedal for the morphing of the
articulations with an AMT tag. For more information on how to do this
please read the >ELECTRI6ITY | Details | Peformance Page <-> Mode:
‘Control articulation morphing by CC if an AMT-Articulation is selected’
chapter of the manual.
CHAPTER 06 / FAQs
ELECTRI6ITY/
FAQS
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I don’t want the velocity behavior to control AMT and VMT. Can I adjust
the velocity curve?
Yes. Go to the ‘Settings Page’ and select ‘Calibration’. Adjust the
‘Calibration | VMT | Velocity Curve’ and ‘Calibration | AMT | Velocity
Curve’ parameters until you like the response. It‘s possible to tweak the
behavior of the retrigger keyswitches there as well.
I don’t like the CCs behavior to control AMT and VMT. Can I adjust the CC
curve?
Yes. Go to the ‘Settings Page’ select ‘Calibration’. Adjust the ‘Calibration |
VMT | CC Curve’ and ‘Calibration | AMT | CC Curve’ parameters until you
like the response.
There are so many keyswitches, I’m afraid I have to spent a lot of time to
learn them all. Is this really necessary?
In most cases you‘ll only have to learn a few of the keyswitches to control
ELECTRI6ITY. We added them to give power users the option to control
everything if needed. For example: you can manually select certain release
samples via keyswitches, but if you don‘t choose them manually, the artificial
intelligence takes over and controls the release samples for you.
What does the [F], [V], [C], and [S] tag mean on the keyswitch setup
page?
[F] means forced keyswitch (a keyswitch is only active as long as you press
it), [V] means velocity sensitive keyswitch (see below), [C] means combined
keyswitch (see below), and [S] means standard keyswitch.
What does velocity sensitive keyswitch mean?
A velocity sensitive keyswitch does different things if played soft or hard.
For example: if you press the ‘Play Mode Legato’ keyswitch soft, it selects
the muted legato mode. If you press it harder it selects the sustain legato
mode. You can adjust the threshold on the settings page by choosing
calibration ‘VKS Switch Velocity’. The default value is 90. This means the
keyswitch state is switched by playing it with a velocity < 90 or a velocity >=
90.
Electri6ity
What does combined keyswitch mean / how do you change the release
articulation?
To force a certain release articulation press the Select Release KS (A-1)
together with one of the release keyswitches (A#-1 to B0). The default
release articulation is overwritten as long as you keep the keyswitches
pressed. If you want to release all notes with a long slide down for example,
play a note or a chord, keep it pressed, now play A-1 followed by G0 (or both
together) and release the played note or chord. As soon as you release the
forced keyswitch, the default release articulation is used again.
How can I do double tracking?
Load two copies of the same guitar, then go to the Settings > Humanize
page and set one to “Guitar 1” and the other to “Guitar 2.”
What are differences between the FULL, LITE and QUICK patches?
The FULL patches contain all available articulations and release noises. But
due to the massive amount of samples they need longer to load and have a
significant higher memory footprint than the other patches. However you’ll
be able to remove articulations you won’t need on the Settings Page =>
Memory, which can reduce the necessary amount of memory a lot. That way
you can find the best trade off between flexibility and sound variation and
loading time/memory consumption.
The SUSTAIN AND MUTED ONLY (SMO) patches contain the most
important Muted<->Sustain articulation and all release noises, but no slides
or legato samples. You can use this articulation whenever you’ll need a guitar
for strumming or as a rhythm guitar only.
The SUSTAIN ONLY (SO) patches contain only the Sustain notes articulation,
used when you only need a few guitar chords or notes here and there. They
load very fast but they contain no muted samples and only the basic release
noises.
I notice some additional latency in Poly, but not in Solo and Legato mode
– how can I compensate this delay in my sequencer?
If you play a chord on the keyboard not all keys are pressed at the same
time. To compensate this sloppiness and to correctly detect a chord the
engine has to wait for all chord notes to arrive. By default this time is 24ms,
but if you play very accurately, you can lower the detection time. Go to the
‘Settings Page’, select ‘Calibration’ and change the ‘Chord Detection |
Time’ parameter. By default the chord detection is only active in Poly mode,
since Solo and Legato are monophonic modes and require no chord
detection.
If you mainly use the library in a sequencer environment, you can switch
‘Chord Detection | Mode’ on the same page to ‘Sequencer (POLY, SOLO,
LEGATO)’. This has two benefits when working in a sequencer: First you can
adjust the timing of all ELECTRI6ITY midi tracks to compensate for the
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delay, and second, you can mix chords with legato and solo lines without
needing to switch the play mode to Poly. The suggested latency
compensation time is displayed, if you click on the ‘Setup’ button on the
‘Performance Page’.
Is ELECTRI6ITY’s whole ‘artificial intelligence’ marketing spin?
No! A significant amount of time was spend on research on how to place
notes played on the virtual fretboard of ELECTRI6ITY since it’s crucial for
the realistic tone of the virtual guitar. A simple example: take ‘E3’ for
example. It can be played on four different strings/frets on a guitar with 22
frets. Now take ‘F3’ for example which can also be played on four different
strings/frets. If you now play E3 followed by F6 there are 16 possibilities to
play those two notes on different strings/frets. If you now going to play E3,
F6, E3 you already have 64 possibilities and so on. What ELECTRI6ITY does
is trying to minimize these possibilities and finding the most natural way to
play those notes on the virtual fretboard - a way a human guitarist would
choose. Since the engine can’t look into the future it needs to predict the
best possible position of the next note on the fretboard by taking into
account what you have already been playing and the way you played it (for
example speed, duration of notes, intervals, chord playing, etc.). Since
fretboard placement on a guitar also depends on the player and the style,
you can setup a lot of preferences and parameters to change the behavior
of the string/fretboard engine in ELECTRI6ITY. For more details see
>ELECTRI6ITY | Details | Settings Page.
Can I bypass the artificial intelligence so every note on the keyboard will
always be played on the same fretboard position and with the same
timbre?
Electri6ity
Yes. Simply go to the ‘Settings Page’ and switch ‘Strings | Selection | Auto’
to one of the static modes. For more details see >ELECTRI6ITY | Details |
Settings Page | Strings.
CHAPTER 07
ELECTRI6ITY CC List | Performance Page
This chart indicate all the default settings, but any CC can be changed on its
relevant edit page.
Morph AMT
CC#1
Morph VMT
CC#1
Guitar Pickup
CC#20
Guitar Tone
CC#21
Guitar Volume
CC#22
Strum Time
CC#23
Strum Direction
CC#24
Pick Direction
CC#25
Pick Position
CC#26
Vibrato Type
CC#27
Vibrato Strength
CC#28
Vibrato Speed
CC#29
Volume Releases
CC#30
Volume Noises
CC#31
Electri6ity CC List | Settings Page
This chart indicate all the default settings, but any CC can be changed on its
relevant edit page.
String | Selection
CC#32
String | Selection | Auto
CC#33
Fretboard | Position
CC#34
Fretboard | Position | Auto
CC#35
Fretboard | Position | Chuckas-Chuckas | Manually
CC#36
Fretboard | Position | Hand Mute (Release Sample)
CC#37
CHAPTER 07 / CC LIST
ELECTRI6ITY/
CC LIST | KEYSWITCH LIST
48
Electri6ity
49
Tone | Hammer Ons/Pull Offs
CC#39
Tone | Chucka-Chucka
CC#40
Tone | Strumming
CC#41
Tone | Picking
CC#42
Playing | Trills (Speed)
CC#43
Playing | Tremolo Picking (Speed)
CC#44
Playing | Silent Mode (Pick and Strum Keys Only)
CC#45
Playing | Pitch Bend | Range
CC#46
Playing | Pitch Bend | Auto Unison Bends
CC#47
Playing | Slide Mode | Slide In
CC#48
Playing | Slide Mode | Slide Speed
CC#49
Playing | Sustain Pedal Mode
CC#50
Playing | Guitar Chords
CC#51
Playing | Switch Sustain to Hammer On/Pull Off
CC#52
Playing | Muted Tightness | Chords
CC#53
Playing | Muted Tightness | Single Notes
CC#54
Playing | Switch to ghost notes at low velocity
CC#55
Legato | Mode
CC#57
Legato | Glue | Hammer Ons/Pull Offs
CC#58
Legato | Glue | Slides
CC#59
Legato | Glue | Smooth Attacks
CC#60
Strumming | Speed | Downstroke
CC#61
Strumming | Speed | Upstroke
CC#62
Strumming | Speed | Mode
CC#63
Strumming | Strum Angle
CC#65
Strumming | Strum Range
CC#66
Strumming | Strum Range | Auto Variation
CC#67
Strumming | Notes | Downstroke
CC#68
Strumming | Notes | Upstroke
CC#69
Strumming | Acceleration | Downstroke
CC#70
Strumming | Acceleration | Upstroke
CC#71
Vibrato | Control Mode
CC#72
Noise | Picking
CC#73
Noise | Strumming
CC#74
Noise | Extra Attack
CC#76
Noise | Slides
CC#77
Noise | Background (Noisefloor)
CC#78
Release | Duration
CC#79
Release | Volume
CC#80
Humanize | Variation
CC#81
Humanize | Variation | Chuckas/Ghosts
CC#83
Humanize | Position | Pick
CC#84
Humanize | Position | Chucka-Chuckas
CC#85
Humanize | Pitch
CC#86
Humanize | Pitch | Sharpen Muted Notes
CC#87
Humanize | Volume
CC#88
Humanize | Timing
CC#89
Humanize | Velocity
CC#90
50
Electri6ity
51
Electri6ity Keyswitch List | Default
Electri6ity Keyswitch List | Alternative
52
CHAPTER 08 / TECH SUPPORT, ETC.
53
CHAPTER 08
ELECTRI6ITY/
TECH
SUPPORT,
ETC.
TECH SUPPORT
Vir2 Instruments stands behind its products and is committed to helping you
get the most out of using them. Please check the Support area of the www.
vir2.com web site if you encounter any difficulties in using the product. You
may also e-mail support@vir2.com.
Before getting in touch with Vir2 Instruments regarding problems with the
product, make sure you are running the latest versions of the library, engine,
and Service Center. We are continuously updating and improving the
product, so it is possible that there are more recent updates available that
were released after the physical manufacturing of your installation disc.
THE FULL VERSION OF KONTAKT 4
ELECTRI6ITY ships with Kontakt 4 running in library mode, meaning it is
fully able to play back the ELECTRI6ITY library and access the parameters
detailed in this manual.
Registered owners of ELECTRI6ITY are eligible for a special crossgrade
discount to the full version of Kontakt 4, which enables users to create their
own libraries, import libraries in non-Kontakt formats, and access numerous
deep editing features.
Visit the nativeinstruments.com web site for details on the Kontakt
crossgrade.
Electri6ity
LICENSE AGREEMENT
The samples contained herein are licensed, not sold to you, the individual
end user, by Vir2 Instruments. This non-exclusive, non-transferable license is
granted only to the individual end user who has purchased an unopened,
new, and lawfully made copy of this product from a dealer or distributor
authorized by Vir2 Instruments. All samples remain the property of Vir2
Instruments and are licensed only for use in the creation of a live or recorded
performance that includes the licensed samples as part of a derivative
musical work created by the licensed end user. This license expressly forbids
resale, rental, loan, gift, or transfer of these samples in any format or via any
medium, except as part of a derivative musical work. The samples may not
be included, whether unmodified or as part of a derivative work, in any
sample library product. Any unlicensed usage will be prosecuted to the
maximum extent possible under the law.
CREDITS
Produced by: Vir2 Instruments
Sound Design and Programming: Benjamin Stelzer, David Das, Chris Peck
Cover Design: Milenko Dilas
Layout: Jody Friedericks
Manual: Benjamin Stelzer and David Das
Recording: Benjamin Stelzer and Felix Strauss with additional help from
Manfred Stelzer, Kai Bigler, Benedikt Grubauer, and Carolin Joas
Sampling Tools: Felix Strauss
Scripting: Benjamin Stelzer with additional help from Felix Strauss
Special thanks to the beta test team, who provided invaluable input to the
product, and to the Native Instruments team, especially Dan Santucci, Nicki
Marinic, Johannes Mai, Markus Krieg, Wolfgang Schneider, Frank Elting, and
Rembert Gantke.
All specifications subject to change.
Reference to several registered trademarks are made for the purposes of
illustration only. These remain the property of their registered owners. These
include (but are not limited to): “Les Paul”, “Les Paul P90”, “P90”, “335”, “ES335”, “L4”, “Gibson L4” - registered trademarks of Gibson Guitar
Corporation; “Strat”, “Stratocaster”, “Tele”, “Telecaster” - registered
trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation; “Lipstick” registered trademark of Danelectro.
54
Electri6ity
© 2010 Vir2 Instruments.
All trademarks used are property of their respective owners.
Specifications subject to change.